THE parishioners of St Thomas’ Church at Kentisbury have been celebrating a very successful end to their church roof appeal.

In February last year the appeal was launched to raise the £50,000 needed to fix the badly leaking roof before the historic building suffered severe damage.

With an ‘in principle’ grant of £113,000 from English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund, the race was on to hold events, contact other grant organisations and drum up support for the appeal.

This Sunday (September 30) St Thomas’ Church will host a Team Service for the Shirwell Mission Community and all are invited to join in with the celebration from 11am.

“Without all this support the roof of St Thomas Church would never have had the repairs done, badly needed to keep our beautiful church in the state it should be for future generations,” said church warden Margaret Purchase.

“We wish to thank all the charities and all the very kind private donors publicly for their very generous grants and support.

“We owe a big thank you to Jonathan Rhind Architects, the builders Hiax Limited of Bideford, plus ecologist Richard Green for protecting the bats and archaeologist Colin Humphreys for preparing the report that documented any new discoveries while the work took place.

“The project was completed on time with no overspend.”

The church would like to thank the following organisations: English Heritage, National Churches Trust, Devon Historic Churches Trust, Garfield Weston Foundation, Viscount Amory Trust, Elmgrant Trust, Allchurches Trust and the Church Buildings Council.